The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 is the biggest story of the year, as it will mark only the second time in 2014 that a film opened above $100 million (Transformers: Age of Extinction). Last year, on November 22, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire opened, delivering $158 million smackaroos. Why will this be even bigger? First off, momentum. All of the films have been liked, so now Lionsgate is dipping even more into the “general audience” category. Two, the economy is slightly better. Finally, because 2014 has featured less massive hits than 2013, there should be some pent-up demand. For a bonus level add in all those folks ready to shop and take vacations.
It all adds up to $166.5 million, with the only potential for slippage coming from the entire East Coast being snowed in. It’s not as good a film as the others, playing more like a straight up drama, but that won’t matter much for the opening 72 hours.
Big Hero 6 continues to putter along, and that holdover, only dropping 38 percent, was acceptable. However, the story here will be written internationally, which means we won’t know much until January of 2015. $24.2 million is the call for this weekend, a strong second place showing as we’re officially in the family-ville section of the year.
Dumb and Dumber To is lined up for a precipitous drop. Is my 56 percent slide too generous? It doesn’t have comedic competition, but if 22 Jump Street fell 52 percent, the news might not be good here. That B- Cinemascore isn’t helping matters either. $15.9 million is where I peg it, your user experience may vary.
Finally, we take a gander at Interstellar. They had to have been hoping for a better number than minus 40 percent last weekend, as the domestic totals now seem likely to come in under the production budget ($165 million). It still needs to open in Japan, and the UK holdover was a more solid 30 percent dip, so perhaps my projected 35 percent drop to $18.4 million will be a sign that Interstellar will be the holiday film of choice. Will Hunger Games hurt it? Tough film to call this weekend, but math suggests the declines will steadily decrease as it heads towards $0.
Your turn! Get in there!
Current Record: 55-107-6 against the wisdom of the crowds
SIDE NOTE: Some of the theater numbers below are estimates. We’ll have the actual counts in Sunday’s wrap-up article.
